One great way to overcome this problem is to teach America's children how to cook healthy meals from scratch. Lustig wants to build public pressure on the food industry and government leaders to cut down on unhealthy food additives to improve everyone's well-being.

He has teamed up with the American Heart Association and Walnut Creek chef Cindy Gershen, who also teaches at Mt. Diablo High in Concord, to get the message out to parents and the general public that major changes are needed in Americans' diets. Heath agencies agree that added sugar should only make up 5 percent of a person's total calories each day, which amounts to 4 teaspoons of added sugar for kids, 6 teaspoons for women or 9 teaspoons for men, he said.

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"In America today, we're at 17 percent," Lustig said, as he watched Gershen's students whipping up meals of fresh salmon, pork loin, tofu and chicken earlier this week during a healthy cook-off among students from her school and Galileo High in San Francisco. "So, this is a reduction by two-thirds."

Cutting back so drastically will be a huge challenge in this country, where 77 percent of all foods sold in grocery stores include added sugar, Lustig said. Even more alarming, he said, is the amount of sugar added to foods given to schoolchildren through breakfast and lunch programs.

About one-quarter of American kids eat school breakfasts, he said. For some, a typical breakfast could include a bowl of sugary cereal and a glass of orange juice -- totaling 11 teaspoons of sugar -- or 7 teaspoons more than the recommended amount for the entire day.

The reason Americans are consuming too much sugar is simple, Lustig says.

"The food industry makes money by selling crappy food," he said. "The federal government lets them, but then the federal government has to pay for the downstream negative effects of that."

For example, the government spends $245 billion a year on diabetes, he said. And it spends $200 billion a year fighting dementia, which he said has been associated with high-sugar diets.

Until there is enough public outcry, Lustig says, nothing will change, even though the economic arguments alone justify the reductions he recommends. But more importantly, he says, children and their communities would benefit from healthier diets.

"When kids eat real food, they're thinner, smarter and their behavior problems are better," he said. "One-third of Americans don't know how to cook. We can't fix this until they do."

Lustig and Gershen want to bring back home economics programs to high schools so that students can learn the nutritional guidelines and skills necessary to be healthier. Gershen's students said they have changed their own diets and the foods eaten in their homes.

"It's important to know what to put in your body," said Maria Aguirre, 17, a junior at Mt. Diablo High. "At home, when you see what your mom makes, you say, 'Mom, how much did you put in it?' We have sugar at school. But, we also use honey."

After the San Francisco competition ended, 16-year-old Shelby Cooper snacked on a plate of peas.

"It's a healthier snack than a bag of chips and I'm more full," she said. "I feel guilty if I eat chips."

Carissa Urbina, a 17-year-old junior at Mt. Diablo High, said she enjoyed the salmon and vegetables they cooked.

"It gives me a lot of energy throughout my day as I've been eating this food," she said. "And I don't feel guilty."